


Lovely and Scarred

by greygerbil



Category: Vampyr (Video Game)
Genre: Blood Drinking, First Time, Hand Jobs, M/M, Past Sexual Assault, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-20
Updated: 2018-12-20
Packaged: 2019-09-23 16:34:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17083856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greygerbil/pseuds/greygerbil
Summary: It's not that Jonathan doesn't want to take his relationship with Sean further, it's just that he's not sure if he even deserves what he has right now.





	Lovely and Scarred

**Author's Note:**

  * For [scorpiod](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scorpiod/gifts).



> You had a lot of great little prompts in your Likes lists and I hope I managed to build a treat you'll enjoy around them. Thanks for the fun letter!

Jonathan watches Sean move through the room. He hesitates before the old photographs on the wall, looks at a bundle of papers on a table, at Jonathan’s laboratory equipment, and finally ends up brushing dust off the broad green leaves of the plant that stands by the edge of Jonathan’s work bench.

“This one needed more nursing than some of the patients in the hospital,” Jonathan says into the silence. “I’ve given her a name now because I’ve grown so fond of her while I brought her back from the brink of death.”

Sean smiles briefly at him. “What is she called?”

“Lisa.”

When Sean stands so close in this quiet, secluded room, Jonathan can very faintly hear the thumping of his heart with his sharp hunter’s senses that are made to find flowing blood. Being a doctor, he can tell it’s going a tad too fast, a hundred twenty or thirty beats per minute. Sean came over late this night. Jonathan wonders if he trapped himself here deliberately so he’s not tempted to walk out the door; if he needs the threat of burning alive to be in Jonathan’s bed.

Jonathan, in truth, had not even considered the implications when he invited Sean to stay a day at Pembroke sometime. Much as he will make no claim to chastity, in this case, he had only thought of how Sean never seems to get a quiet minute even during the day, since there’s always something going on at the shelter. Even a vampire needs rest sometimes, Jonathan knows.

But their relationship being as it was, he cannot blame Sean for infering something different. They kissed the first time two months ago under the iron archway of the entrance to Stonebridge Cemetery, where Jonathan had just caught Sean leaving a light branch green with a hundred round leaves on Mary’s grave.

“When you told me her story, I was so sad for her. It’s acacia... it’s durable, just like the immortal soul.”

Jonathan has stopped believing in much long ago, but if he’s wrong, he hopes Sean is right, and not those preaching fire and brimstone. Even now Jonathan still wakes shuddering at the thought that he damned his sister not just to death but to the flames of hell, should it exist, by making her that crazed murderer. Sean, however, is convinced there is hope for everybody. His god is mild and merciful, possibly because he is, though of course Sean would say it was the other way around, that he was striving for the divine example. Jonathan remembers well the feeling of tenderness that overcame him that moment in that dreadful place and how glad he was to feel Sean leaning into his the kiss after a moment of still surprise.

Life has been such a maelstrom since Jonathan’s mortality bled out onto the dirty London cobblestones, so much horror, so many deaths, that he is grateful for anything good. He wants Sean, yes, but it’s more in idle fantasies. He’s glad to have as much as the honest smile on Sean’s face when Jonathan opens the doors to the shelter.

Sean doesn’t look very happy now.

“Are you tired?” Jonathan asks.

“No, not too tired.”

Sean finally leaves the plant be and moves towards him.

“We can just go to sleep,” Jonathan says, not entirely sure how to cut the tension in the room without growing crass. Words have always failed him just a little bit in these matters, at least until his decorum is swept away in the middle of the act. These things were much more easily demonstrated than spoken about, anyway. “It has been a long night for both of us, I’m sure.”

Sean looks up at him, uncertainty and concern written over his perpetually bruised face. He glances at the tips of his shoes quickly after.

“Yes,” he says, almost puzzled. “I suppose it was.”

Apparently, this has been side-stepping the issue too much. Jonathan takes Sean by the hand, feeling the rough fabric of bandages against his skin. Some part of Sean’s hands is always open, bleeding, raw. The aching body is the burden Skals carry.

“Sean, I want to be clear. I don’t make any demands of you.”

“I know that,” Sean says with enough conviction that Jonathan believes him. “It doesn’t mean you never... thought about doing anything, though, does it?”

Jonathan is tongue-tied for a moment because Sean is not wrong. He turns his hand, surveying a small cut along the base of his palm, moves it back around.

“Maybe, but I don’t like the way you’re looking at me,” he says. “Like you’re afraid.”

Sean has looked at him that way before, the first few times when Jonathan returned after forcing him to his knees – not terrified, but apprehensive, on his guard.

“I’m not afraid of you. I’m just...” Sean breaks off, his hand curling in Jonathan’s. Jonathan can see the bones move under the skin and dusk of soft brown hair. “I’m not innocent, either, God forgive me. I’m not really a saint, after all.”

Jonathan is surprised, but perhaps he shouldn’t be. Sean is human still, as healthy as a Skal can be. It’s flattering to think about that he wakes something like desire in him.

“Have you ever... with someone else?”

“You know the answer to that,” Sean says, with a frown that looks unsettled.

“Willingly,” Jonathan adds, hastily. It seemed understood to him. He does not consider violence suffered the same thing as sex.

“Oh. No. I had very little inclination. I always figured that even if I did find someone I was so devoted to it would not feel like a sin if I, uhm, knew them in the biblical sense, I am too – broken.”

The defeat in Sean’s voice is audible and hurts Jonathan.

“I’m sure that’s not true.”

“You have experience, don’t you?” Sean asks, in turn, dodging his attempt to comfort him.

Jonathan nods his head. “Quite a bit.”

“I don’t think I will compare.”

“Do you think I would grade your performance against that of former lovers like I am holding an examination in a university class?”

Sean considers him for a moment and then shakes his head.

“No, of course not. Forgive me, my head is a right mess when it comes to this matter.”

Jonathan grabs him by the hands and pulls him in closer, giving a second for Sean to escape before he kisses him. In his arms, Sean finally relaxes after a few long moments. His hands rest chastely on Jonathan’s biceps, but his mouth is open and his tongue quick against Jonathan’s. The way he clings to him is harder and more desperate than usual. When Jonathan nips at his lower lip, his fingers dig in hard and Jonathan moves his head back.

“I don’t know how you turn me mad with just... small things like that,” Sean murmurs, tongue flicking out to lick his lip. “I never was so sensitive.”

Jonathan has to laugh and Sean narrows his eyes at him.

“I apologise, but that’s something I feel any man likes to hear for his pride. Who knew you could flirt?”

Sean’s cheeks colour even as he can’t quite suppress a smile.

“I was merely honest.”

“Even better.”

Jonathan kisses him again and sinks into his embrace when Sean puts his arms around him. He tips forward, leaning against him and Sean’s legs fold under the weight, leave him sitting on the bed, where Jonathan follows. He breaks the kiss to nose against Sean’s beard at his jawline and then, thinking on Sean’s comment, lowers his head just a little to bite his neck. Sean’s sound of surprise turns deeper and stretches when Jonathan sinks his teeth in, not hard enough to break skin, but enough so he can feel Sean’s heart wildly pumping blood through his veins.

Jonathan lets up after a long moment with his jaw clamped around his neck, the rhythm of Sean’s heartbeat still resonating through him. Sean stares at him, wide-eyed, with his mouth half-opened and his hands tangled in the fabric of Jonathan’s suit. Jonathan wants to tear Sean’s clothes off him, but he decides that it’s more prudent to lure him instead. He strokes Sean’s hands and runs his fingertips up their backside before he lets go and undoes his own vest and shirt under Sean’s watchful eyes, revealing pale skin to him. The war has left Jonathan harder than he was before, a soldier with muscles and scars. He takes Sean’s hand and puts it on his chest.

“I like how your hands feel,” he murmurs into Sean’s ear.

They are worker’s hands, rough and calloused from the hard labour at the shelter, bandaged and cut-up from his nature as a Skal, and that feeling contrasts with how gentle they move.

As Sean explores his upper body with an almost reverential air about him, tracing scars and resting his palms against him as if to soak up the little warmth Jonathan can still give, Jonathan looks him over and finds that Sean’s slack, faded pants betray his arousal. When Jonathan grabs one wrist to pull the hand up and sucks a finger into his mouth, Sean gives a nervous, incredulous little laugh and squirms. He gently tugs his hand away and wraps his arms around Jonathan, pulling him close and down, down, until they are both lying on the bed. They are close and kissing and Sean’s thighs bracket Jonathan’s. He only seems to notice his own arousal when Jonathan squeezes his leg tighter between Sean’s, and he breaks off with a low moan that goes straight through Jonathan.

“Like that?” Jonathan asks, half to reassure himself, half because he just wants to hear Sean’s voice, soft and breathless, say more nice things.

“Yes, I... I do...”

Sean moves under him, hips twitching up once before he gets himself under control, looking abashed. Jonathan chuckles against his temple, kisses it.

Sean’s hands are running up Jonathan’s back. One eases into his hair over the short cut at the back and then through the longer strands. He looks entranced, curious, and Jonathan loves watching him explore, but his own stolen blood is running hot, urging him on to pull up the hem of Sean’s thick shirt. He’s slim under clothes that are ill-fitted, his sallow skin painted with blue bruises and a gash that runs down his side, some scratch that must have torn open his paper-thin skin and grown wider instead of healing. Sean looks down at himself and frowns. It seems a bit like he’s seeing himself for the first time, but Jonathan understands that. He remembers feeling his body differently when his first lover looked at him, too, trying to imagine what it seemed like in their eyes.

“Vanity is not usually my sin,” Sean says, “but would you mind leaving me my shirt? It’s not pretty...”

Thanks to the Ekon blood he’s not nearly as far deteriorated as most Skals, he just looks like he got beat up. It reminds Jonathan of fleeting encounters he’s had in the war, shut up in quiet tents, celebrating being alive another day. The men there were beaten and bruised, too. After everything Sean has been through since Jonathan has known him or even in the difficult life he had before, Jonathan finds himself thinking his body just makes his trials visible now. That’s nothing bad.

“You were a handsome man and still are. I’m sure you’ve tempted more people to sin than you would ever feel comfortable knowing,” he says with a quirk to his lips.

“Oh, no.” Sean is smiling. “I think you play the role of the seductive vampire much better than me, Jonathan.”

Jonathan laughs at the stiffly timid and utterly charming way Sean gives compliments and kisses him again, more insistently.

“You can keep your clothes on if you wish, but don’t do it for my sake,” he says after they part.

Sean looks at him for a long moment before he gently pushes against Jonathan’s chest. He stands, slips off the rosary hanging around his neck and places it carefully on the nightstand. He takes off his shoes, strips his jacket and his shirt, his trousers, his socks, efficiently and without looking at Jonathan, and yet Jonathan still feels his heart beat faster, aware this is done only in hopes to please him, which makes it just as enticing as the most artful cabaret show. Sean’s fingers catch on the rim of his undergarments and hesitate, but he pulls them down with a resolute movement before he suddenly throws himself back into Jonathan’s arms, so much more vehemently than before, depriving Jonathan of a chance to take a closer look at him, which may be the point. Jonathan grabs him firmly and tugs him back onto the bed, kissing his exposed shoulder, grabbing the soft flesh of his backside.

Sean ends up straddling his thigh and Jonathan holds him there as he takes his cock in hand, giving it tight strokes that have Sean panting into his mouth as they kiss. He notices clumsy but eager fingers at his trousers and helps him with the buttons, shivering as he feels Sean’s careful touch that runs over the head and down the length of his cock and grips him carefully at the base. It goes through him like an electric current.

Jonathan moves his leg to shift Sean a little sideways in his lap, allowing him to grasp them both at once as Sean’s fingers uncurl. He paws Jonathan in an unfocused, needy way, and Jonathan trails his fingers down his spine, drinking in the sight of Sean’s form outside the suit that hides so much of its lines, and every touch of Sean’s hands on his chest and brush of his toes against his calves stokes the fire in him. He leans forward to Sean’s neck again, seeing as how he got such a beautiful reaction before, but his own need makes him go too hard and he finds his teeth are sharp as he sinks them into Sean’s flesh, drawing blood.

It’s a shock of taste, different from any human blood Jonathan has had, sweet and thick, heady and cloying, like honey mixed with opium.

“My apologies-”

Jonathan is kept from pulling away by a hand on the back of his head.

“You can go on,” Sean says quietly.

There’s no arguing with that, especially not now, when Jonathan’s brain is being held in thrall by his lust for Sean and blood at the same time, leaving no more room for rational thought. He bites down again, the grip on their cocks tightening, joined by Sean’s hand around his own. Jonathan is stroking them, Sean is teasing their heads and mimicking his rhythm in turns, a maddening flood of sensation. Sean’s other hand is spanning over the back of Jonathan’s head, firm, loving, inviting Jonathan to take as he pleases.

By the time he hears Sean gasp out and feels his hand grow wet, Jonathan is almost dazed. He can’t even pinpoint when he himself comes, torn away in a current of animal satisfaction, and it’s only with great self-control that he finally pulls off Sean, licking the wounds on his neck like an apology. Sean is limp in his arms, his hand has sagged down on Jonathan’s shoulder, and a spike of fear goes through Jonathan. However, as he touches Sean’s cheek to turn his face towards him, Sean’s eyes are focused on him and he’s smiling a little.

Jonathan cleans them up with his discarded shirt before he lies back, Sean gathered up against his side. Sean is staring at the ceiling, brushing his hand through his own short hair and mussing it, and Jonathan feels a youthful and foolish urge to ask him about his performance which he just bites down on. Sean’s taste is still on his tongue.

“I apologise, I may have lost my head for a moment...”

“You left me enough blood,” Sean says. “I liked it.”

He sounds bewildered and Jonathan squeezes his shoulder.

“I did, too.”

He understands there is a deeper discussion to be had here, he’s read _Psychopathia Sexualis_ and Freud, but maybe one also doesn’t have to, not right now. Much as his own voracious hunger still scares him, he has enough control not to hurt Sean more than he wants to be hurt, or wants to give himself to Jonathan, or wants them to be connected, or whatever his motives may be. The mind is a prism of oddities and theirs are scarred worse than others, inlaid with the instinct of beasts. One does well not to overthink everything. Still, in that light, how much more precious is it that Sean would allow himself to become prey?

“I will get you some food later,” Jonathan adds.

Though Sean doesn’t need to eat much anymore, when he’s willfully sapped of strength like this, it helps him recover.

Sean stares up at him.

“You really don’t have to do that, my food is not appetising.”

“There’s a morgue here. It won’t be a problem.” Jonathan hesitates briefly. “Or you can steal some of the blood back if you want to.”

He knows that Skals like drinking Ekon blood, in theory. Old Bridget said as much. Even Sean, who had to be forced kicking and fighting to do it, was clutching Jonathan’s wrist by the end. But he also realises it might not be the best memory to call on.

Sean lies silent with his head on Jonathan’s shoulder.

“No, I’d rather not right now. It would be – too much on top of everything.”

Jonathan nods his head. Yes, this has been a lot. He does like that Sean doesn’t categorically refuse, though.

“So I impressed you? I’m relieved,” he jokes, to clear the air.

Sean chuckles, his breath warm against Jonathan’s skin.

“You have a way of commanding attention that’s very pleasant.”

Jonathan parses the sentence and thinks that perhaps Sean was worried about thoughts he’s buried resurfacing. He’s warned Jonathan he’s unsure about sex. Maybe they will some other night, some other time. Trauma is not a straight line. Jonathan will be there if it happens. For now, though, he decides to allow himself to just bask in the feeling of Sean’s arm firmly wrapped around his middle, his weight leaning comfortably into him, a small piece of simple joy carved out of the darkness of his life.

Sean stretches out his hand to grab his discarded rosary and pull it to himself. The pearls slide against Jonathan’s naked chest as he runs them silently through his fingers, going through the Our Fathers and Hail Marys and Glory Bes.

“Are you apologising?” Jonathan asks after a moment.

Sean shakes his head.

“I confess my sins in private, though you have certainly caused me to have more to speak on with the thoughts I have in my head around you,” he mutters, with a trace of exasperated humour in his voice. “But no, I was not apologising. I was thanking the Lord for your presence in my life.”

Jonathan doesn’t really have the words to answer. What is that? Sweet? Unlikely? He enjoys that Sean thinks so well of him, but he’s not sure if he deserves it all the same.

“I hope you keep seeing me like this, and I won’t end up being a challenge on your way when you look back some time in the future,” he says quietly, touching Sean’s tousled hair.

What has he done in the last months? Rivers of red have flowed around him, his Mary the most shattering casualty, but the corpses of Priwen guards, Skals, and vampires littering the way he had come, and before that were three years of war in which it had sometimes felt like he was keeping an even balance between lives he saved and lives he ended. He has created one vampire through compassion and has to hope he isn’t eating his patients, and one through anger who might use his newfound powers to kill innocent beings. This man here, who is cursed to an existence of feeding on the dead and a creature reviled even by other vampires and yet still believes in good, is the brightest spot in Jonathan’s life right now and it’s difficult not to wonder when he will manage to extinguish that flame, too.

He notices he’s cradled Sean tighter against himself when Sean gently frees himself from Jonathan’s grip and plants a hand by the side of his head as he leans over him.

“You should have more faith in yourself.”

“It’s been running short lately,” Jonathan admits, grasping Sean by the waist. “When I saw you earlier this evening, I already worried I’d broken what trust you had in me with careless words.”

“Then you should have more faith in me, too.” Sean lowers his gaze. “My history is not something I hold against you. Those are _my_ demons.”

It is something Jonathan has held against Sean, though, a thought he keeps coming back to because of how distasteful he himself finds it to be, even if it was necessary in the moment. It seems, however, like Sean has forgiven him. Perhaps to rid himself of his own demons, Jonathan will have to fogive himself, too, for this and other things, unbearably selfish as the thought seems for right now.

He closes Sean in his arms and turns him to lie on his side, looking him in the eyes.

“Will you stay here with me? The door is locked, no one will see us together. Otherwise, I can find you a bed on the third floor.”

Sean smiles to himself and glances at the ceiling again.

“I have to confess something, after all.”

Jonathan looks at him expectantly.

“I came so late partially in the hopes you’d keep me here. We have never shared a bed.”

Jonathan rewinds, reassesses. He thought Sean was trying to trap himself; Sean was hoping to enjoy his presence. Yes, perhaps he needs to have more faith in both of them, Jonathan thinks, when Sean takes his hand.

“You didn’t have to have sex with me for that,” Jonathan points out, avoiding the bandages around Sean’s knuckles as he strokes his fingers.

Sean closes his eyes for a moment. “You’re not fair.”

“Excuse me?”

“If you want me to say I wanted it... did I not already? It’s a bit awkward to be so blunt...”

Jonathan has considered that Sean would be nervous because of the terrible things done to him, but not because Jonathan is temptation to him; that perhaps it was hard for Sean to face him like this not because he’s afraid of what Jonathan wants, but because of what he wants, too.

“I did want to sleep with you. I do, God forgive me,” Sean mutters. “But you are quite wicked, doctor!”

Something loosens in Jonathan’s chest and he laughs.

“My sincerest apologies, Sean. Embarrassing you was not my intention. If you would like to say that again, though, I’d be very happy to hear it... over and over.”

Sean gives him a defiant look softened by the smile playing on his lips and Jonathan drags him into another kiss.


End file.
